


The Redbeard Solution - Sherlock (TV) meta

by tjlcisthenewsexy



Series: tjlcisthenewsexy's old tumblr metas [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Sherlock Meta, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 14:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17024490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjlcisthenewsexy/pseuds/tjlcisthenewsexy
Summary: This is an old one, and quite obviously dated. It was also my first proper meta, so be nice, it's a whacky one. I'm posting all my tumblr metas here, even the old and outdated. Some links to tumblr will not work.If I'm doing this AO3 thing wrong at all then I apologize. I've read plenty but not posted on here before, so I'm still figuring it out. I'll be adding all my stuff over the next few days, and probably editing as I fix things that I screwed up. Thanks friends.





	The Redbeard Solution - Sherlock (TV) meta

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old one, and quite obviously dated. It was also my first proper meta, so be nice, it's a whacky one. I'm posting all my tumblr metas here, even the old and outdated. Some links to tumblr will not work.
> 
> If I'm doing this AO3 thing wrong at all then I apologize. I've read plenty but not posted on here before, so I'm still figuring it out. I'll be adding all my stuff over the next few days, and probably editing as I fix things that I screwed up. Thanks friends.

Feeling suddenly convinced that we must have been given enough clues to solve the Redbeard thing, I decided to start from one fact that I felt sure about, and see what I could deduce from it. And I found…a solution. It will sound like crack, but I’m so confident about it that I’ve been internally screaming for a week. It’s  _completely_  unbelievable, which is why I think it’s the kind of thing that Moftiss would do. 

The first thing I felt sure about was this:  _There are not going to be any new major characters introduced so late in the story,_  a theory inspired by [@archipelagoarchaea](http://tmblr.co/mxks3ffo6SA6MRnDKX6lojA) ’s [arc reading](http://archipelagoarchaea.tumblr.com/post/109465976878/mystery-and-romance-the-four-arcs-of-sherlock), that says:

> _By the end of the Second Plot Point we and our heroes should have all the information we need to reach the climax. The only exception would be a ‘final twist’ that’s been foreshadowed. Given that this is a mystery that makes heavy use of clues, subtext, and foreshadowing, I suspect there will be a twist — a final pinch before the climax._  ([x](http://archipelagoarchaea.tumblr.com/post/109465976878/mystery-and-romance-the-four-arcs-of-sherlock))

The end of HLV was the end of the second plot point.  **We have all the information we need**.  Therefore, the real ‘Moriarty’ is a person we  _already know_ , AND ‘The Other One’ is a character we  _already know_. I am on board with the theories that [‘The Other One’ is Redbeard](http://wellthengameover.tumblr.com/post/98347033687/redbeard-is-the-other-one), [who is also Sherlock’s sister, in fact, his twin sister](http://inevitably-johnlocked.tumblr.com/post/137364437020/the-other-secret-twin). Major kudos for all the awesome people who put those things together. I didn’t plan on justifying those theories in detail here, so I’ll just summarize what I consider to be good arguments:

The other one is Redbeard:  **[Read this.](http://wellthengameover.tumblr.com/post/98347033687/redbeard-is-the-other-one) ** [@wellthengameover](http://tmblr.co/mea_kAQau3hpmnh1eBhQ5kw)

The other one/Redbeard is Sherlock’s sister. [ **This meta**](http://deducingbbcsherlock.tumblr.com/post/138235045084/cherchez-la-femme-look-for-the-woman-implies), also just this:

**_“Don’t be absurd. I am not given to outbursts of brotherly compassion._ ** **_You know what happened to the other one.”_ **

The ‘brotherly compassion’ that Mycroft referred to is  _his_  compassion as a brother. He is a brother.  _The other one’s gender is not specified._  It’s a riddle. It’s a trick. It also plays on our inclination to ascribe an unknown person a male identity, just like in TBB we, and John, mistakenly expect General Shan to be a man. Moftiss like to gender flip, and they like to  _[invert](http://thememacat.tumblr.com/post/127494895510/tjlit-confirms-tjlc-is-endgame?is_related_post=1)_  plots and ideas from ACD and other adaptations.

Why a twin then? [Read this one](http://waitingforgarridebs.tumblr.com/post/136563287341/artfulkindoforder-three-patch-spoilercast). And obviously there’s this dialogue in TAB…

WATSON: Holmes, could it have been twins?  
HOLMES: No.  
WATSON: Why not?  
HOLMES: Because it’s never twins.  
LESTRADE: Emelia was not a twin, nor did she have any sisters. She had one older brother who died four years ago.  
_(Watson isn’t yet prepared to let go of the idea and shakes his head, humming.)_  
WATSON: Maybe it was a secret twin.  
_(Holmes looks at him as if staggered by his idiocy.)_  
HOLMES: A what?  
WATSON  _(precisely)_ : A secret twin?  
_(Holmes continues to look at him as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing.)_  
WATSON: Hmm? You know? A twin that nobody knows about? This whole thing could have been planned.  
HOLMES: Since the moment of conception? How breathtakingly prescient of her! It is  _never_ twins, Watson.

In  _House MD_ , which was inspired by ACD Sherlock Holmes, there’s a running joke that “It’s never Lupus.” Then in season four episode eight,  _It’s Lupus._ I am absolutely devoted to the idea that “It’s never twins” means, very pointedly, IT’S TWINS. I talk a bit more about the twins idea later, after which you’ll be convinced ;) 

The second thing I felt sure about is this:  **The other one is _alive_**. From a basic story telling perspective, it’s WAY less satisfying and WAY less interesting if we find out who or what the other one is, but then they’re dead anyway. Boring!! So based on this, I’m running with the assumption that the other one is  _alive._ So the ‘other one’ is  _alive_ ,  _female_ , Sherlock’s  _twin sister_ , and is  _someone we already know_. Whoever it is, there will have been  **foreshadowing** , and  **clues**  left for us to work it out, this is a mystery after all. [We’re supposed to be able to solve it.](http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/104266226049/now-usually-i-dont-do-this-but-uh-go-head) In  _Sherlock_ , clues in the dialogue take the form of a riddle. Specific words and phrases link scenes together. [Odd sounding or out-of-place phrases are clues. ](http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/72895798604/i-see-youre-quite-good-at-catching-subliminal)Words are chosen very very specifically for their precise meaning and the implications of that meaning. I give a lot of weight to clues in the dialogue, and this theory hangs on a smallish number of  _very_  convincing clues. 

We also know that Moftiss like to draw from real, sometimes very specific, events and people in the real world. So some intensive googling yielded this little story…

 **Jacquotte Delahaye**  was a French pirate, one of very few female buccaneers. She was described as a great beauty. To escape her pursuers, she faked her own death and took on an alias, living as a man for many years. Upon returning she became known as ‘back from the dead red’ because of her striking red hair. She led a gang of hundreds of pirates, together with whom she took over a small Caribbean island which they made their home, and she eventually died in a shootout while trying to protect it. ([x](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJacquotte_Delahaye&t=YTVjMTdjOWYxMmU2ZDg5MWU4NjhmMzc3YzAyNjgzYmQzMzk1YWY1MixqVm1pYlBwTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AifT3Q8QrCR8YgkxriemfHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F139237166941%2Fthe-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory&m=1))

Whether or not Moftiss intended Jacquotte Delahaye as a clue, it gave me an idea, and I went with it.  Redbeard; it [sounds like a pirate name](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBlackbeard&t=ZTFkOTU5NWM0MDY0ZWY1YjBkMmYwNmUwNTFkNjEyN2JjMGRjZDViYixqVm1pYlBwTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AifT3Q8QrCR8YgkxriemfHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F139237166941%2Fthe-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory&m=1). The other one, Sherlock’s twin sister. They probably played pirates together, maybe she had red hair, so her pirate name was Redbeard. [@deducingbbcsherlock](http://tmblr.co/mXc0fXoHeo6ZIwsWnyQgqYA) suggested the other one [could have committed suicide](http://deducingbbcsherlock.tumblr.com/post/137326430224/what-if-the-other-one-committed-suicide-ive-seen), but…

 _ **What if she faked her death?**_  And she’s still alive. What if, like Jacquotte, she went into hiding as a man for several years. It would explain why CAM’s read on Sherlock in HLV places Mycroft Holmes and “M.I.6” under “brother” (I understand that the visual is ambiguous, because it could just be referring to Mycroft on two lines, but the ambiguity itself is significant).

Who else do we  _already know_  who has faked her death, is portrayed as Sherlock’s intellectual equal, his dark mirror? His mirror.  **Or….his _twin_**. 

Irene Adler. Someone who TPTB have ensured we don’t forget. To throw us off the scent, they tricked the casual audience into thinking she’s a ‘love interest’, while demonstrating with clues and subtext, that she is NOT a love interest. Moftiss voluntarily bring her up in interviews, keeping her in the forefront of our consciousness, Sherlock is thinking about her in his Victorian fever dream, he’s put her photograph in his pocket watch,  _[his heart](http://jenna221b.tumblr.com/post/134293734195/jenna221b-jenna221b-inevitably-johnlocked)_ , he felt a strong connection to her,  _he just didn’t understand it!_   Perhaps Sherlock was more confused about his feelings for Irene in ASiB than we gave him credit for. If this theory was true, there would no longer be a need to defend Sherlock’s sexuality with respect to the events in ASiB, because it would become explicit; Sherlock WASN’T sexually attracted to, or in love with Irene.  **And even better** , Irene  _wasn’t sexually attracted to or in love with Sherlock._ Sherlock didn’t know her, but  _she knew him_. She wasn’t IN love. Pupils dilated, pulse elevated.  **Love**. Not  _ **in love**_. Just _love_. Yes, she worked with Moriarty to trick her brothers for her own gain, but she tells us very explicitly what her motivation is, and it’s the same message over and over. She likes to  ** _misbehave_** , and she wants  _ **protection.**_

  * _**I make my way in the world, I misbehave. I like to know people will be on my side exactly when I need them to be.**_
  * **_A list of my requests; and some ideas about my protection once they’re granted._**



 Mark Gatiss said this:

> “Well what I love about it is it’s so complicated. That’s what’s thrilling about it. She’s gay and he’s not interested in anything apart from brainwork. But something happens. It doesn’t actually have to be something as mundane as a love story. It’s much more interesting than that.” ([x](http://mid0nz.tumblr.com/post/54049850277/irene-sherlock-is-it-love-depends-on-who-you))

Sherlock’s emotional struggle in ASiB represented something FAR more sinister than we ever expected: a cruel reminder of a repressed memory, a stolen memory; his long lost twin sister. It doesn’t mean ASiB was ANY LESS about johnlock. Rather, it was a misdirection from a misdirection, a double bluff. The slightly obfuscated mutual pining between Sherlock and John is as present as ever. But admittedly, ASiB does make us squirm uncomfortably, ignoring just a few lines of dialogue that don’t support [the johnlock/TJLC reading of the episode](http://deducingbbcsherlock.tumblr.com/post/81261117384/hi-ive-just-discoreved-this-site-and-im-so).  _I did tell you…but did you listen?_  Trust in Moftiss! Always!!! It  _seemed_  like Sherlock loved Irene, because he….DID. Love. Her. (like a sister)  **HE JUST DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY**. No wonder Sherlock is a mess in ASiB. Can you imagine? He finally comes face to face with his long lost twin,  **but the memory of her is gone from his brain, erased by the ‘virus in the data’**. 

He doesn’t know who she is… but she’s special, he knows that much. She’s THE woman. 

_**One of a kind.** _

_**The one woman who matters.**_  

Remember how I talked about riddles? THIS. This is the riddle. One  _ **of a kind**_. The  _one woman who matters_. Here we are worrying about this dialogue, why they put it there, what it means. And now, here it is, finally: Sherlock’s  _twin sister_  is THE ONE (and only) WOMAN WHO MATTERS. Still think this theory is crack? We’re given all the clues we need in one go, in the graveyard scene in TAB…

_Written on the gravestone: **Beloved sister.**_  
_Sherlock says: “… **what happened to the other one?** ”_  
_Mycroft says: “Cherchez la femme” …_ **find The Woman** _._ [(find the dog, find the woman)](http://deducingbbcsherlock.tumblr.com/post/137040344129/jim-killed-the-other-one)

The corpse of the woman rises from the dead (back from the dead red).  _Do not forget me!_

Reconsider [these insights](http://jenna221b.tumblr.com/post/138688176255/how-do-you-interpret-sherlocks-feelings-for) on Irene Adler, for example…

> They take this mirroring to the next level in  _Sherlock,_ though. On a visual level, Irene and Sherlock are strikingly alike: dark hair, pale skin, similar build. And, to really hammer home that point, Irene even wears Sherlock’s coat.

YES. Physically,  _Irene **absolutely**  passes for Sherlock’s sibling._

> Furthermore,  **Irene represents Sherlock’s sexuality, what he has repressed. That’s why he is so fascinated by her- Irene is essentially the ‘Consulting Detective’ of Sex- she “deduces” people’s preferences: _“I know what he likes.”_**

Moffat said  _“Sherlock Holmes must be bursting”[(x)](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vulture.com%2F2014%2F01%2Fsteven-moffat-sherlock-holmes-best-man-speech-interview.html&t=ZTliZjBhMjVlNzE2OWRkODBjZmJkMGEzZDdhNmRlOWRiYjIzMmUwZSxqVm1pYlBwTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AifT3Q8QrCR8YgkxriemfHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F139237166941%2Fthe-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory&m=1). _Irene is what Sherlock would be like if he, well…  _burst._ No wonder he had to repress his sexuality to make his mind work better. Yikes. And she knows what people like, but not just about sex. Her powers of deduction in general seem to equal Sherlock’s. She is a Holmes, after all. But as a mirror as well as a twin, Irene shows us that Sherlock could successfully express his sexuality while retaining his deductive skills, just as she does. 

> That’s why she pops up naked inside his mind palace, but  **Sherlock isn’t ready to face his sexuality yet:** _“Not now, I’m busy!”_ ([x](http://jenna221b.tumblr.com/post/138688176255/how-do-you-interpret-sherlocks-feelings-for))

Nor is he ready to face his buried memories. Why did Sherlock’s sister need to fake her death all those years ago?  _Perhaps her life was threatened, and she needed to disappear_. What if it was Mycroft’s idea? And he helped her do it? Then years later Mycroft helped Sherlock do the same when Sherlock needed to disappear. 

[*I’m going to continue calling her Irene for convenience, but obviously that wasn’t her birth name, or even her MI6 identity*]

What if Irene worked for MI6 after she faked her death, disguised as a man? What if Mycroft and Sherlock had a disagreement over her leaving?  _Sherlock didn’t want to lose her, his twin, his other half, the one person in the world who accepted him for who he was._

[This](http://bachelors-in-subtext.tumblr.com/post/137906070965/i-have-a-theory-we-know-that-as-a-child#notes) says it all (@bachelors-in-subtext)

> Speaking as a twin, being separated is difficult. Losing the person you’ve shared nearly all of your life experiences with? Who knows you better than anyone? Who defends you when people make fun? Who ignores your faults and tries to help you focus on all the good?
> 
> That’d be devastating. That could drive a person to very drastic measures just to deal with the pain of loss. You wouldn’t want help–parents, friends, older siblings–you would just want that person back because they’re the one you could talk to. They just got it–all of it, all your odd thoughts and your strange way of seeing things. They were your buffer in social situations where you were left feeling uncomfortable, they helped you navigate conversations. Your partner in crime. ([x](http://bachelors-in-subtext.tumblr.com/post/137906070965/i-have-a-theory-we-know-that-as-a-child))

What if Sherlock threatened Mycroft? Threatened to get in the way, to protect his sister, keep her close, no matter what the cost? What if Mycroft had to control Sherlock,  _somehow_ , for the  _greater good_?

I’m making a little leap here, and theorizing that Sherlock and his sister were 15 years old when she “died”. This doesn’t quite line up with the idea of an invented memory (a dog) masking a childhood trauma, because that’s more what you would expect of a traumatized 5 year old, not a 15 year old. But this does work if perhaps through some mysterious sciencey process, Sherlock had his memories altered;  _the virus in the data._ I’m a bit undecided. I’m still inclined to think that trauma, and possibly drugs, played a major part in Sherlock’s invented memory (” _I made me”_ ).

Why 15 then? Because of mirroring in  _The Blind Banker_ _._ In TBB[Soo Lin is well established as a stand-in for Sherlock, and Andy for John](http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/75139693718/subversion-and-sherlock-the-blind-banker), and [Zhi Zhu is a stand-in for John AND Mycroft](http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/79041637086/m-theory-the-blind-banker), depending on the context. But what if there’s another layer of subtext here? What if this brother and sister are in fact mirrors for… _a brother and a sister; twins._ We get an allusion to the idea of Sherlock behaving in an  _identical way_  to Zhi Zhu, Soo Lin’s brother:

> _Someone else has been here. Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase, just like I did._

..and then we get this shot of Sherlock holding the photo of a young boy and girl, conceivably even the same age, the  _girl_  smeared with fingerprints, holding it just as Zhi Zhu had moments before.

Later when Sherlock and John talk to Soo Lin in the museum, there’s layers of subtext here as well. After Soo Lin admits she was a smuggler, she says:

> _I was fifteen. My parents were dead. I had no livelihood; no way of surviving day to day except to work for the bosses.  
>  _

Irene was 15, having faked her death her parents were essentially ‘dead to her’. Perhaps it was part of the ‘deal’ that she worked for MI6; it was her only way of surviving day to day, a teenager alone and on the run.

> _Two orphans. We had no choice. We could work for the Black Lotus, or starve on the streets like beggars._

If this story is meant to represent just Sherlock and Mycroft, then it doesn’t quite make sense, because Mycroft would have been 22 when Sherlock was 15. He would have been self-sufficient and not have had to “starve on the streets” like a beggar. It  _could_  represent Sherlock and his twin sister, both 15. Perhaps when Irene faked her death and disappeared, working for MI6, Sherlock in fact did the same thing, kicked out of home because of some trauma surrounding the event. Or even more likely, Mycroft planned it that way, to remove him from the environment which would be a reminder of her existence, and place him somewhere that his utility as a genius would be most valuable. 

I mean,  _The Blind Banker_  itself is  **about**  matching pairs of things…

> _Always in pairs, John. Numbers, come with partners._

_Partners_. It’s an odd word choice that stands out to me, usually used in reference to people, not numbers. Then we have this shot of Sherlock and John, looking at their reflections in the mirror, which is covered in pictures of _matching pairs_ ; the cipher.

Considering it’s pretty well confirmed by one clue in John’s blog that [John and his sister Harriet are twins](http://yesilian.tumblr.com/post/137419441723/fantastische-vanetti-waitingforgarridebs), I find the subtext of this scene pretty darn convincing that Sherlock is also a twin. So far they seem to have pulled off making  _everyone queer_ , so I’m sure they don’t consider making everyone twins as anything too audacious. 

Now lets look for clues in  _A Scandal in Belgravia_ itself. There’s the obvious fact that Sherlock and Irene are mirrored in about 150 ways ([this meta](http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/103077019490/this-irene-adler-is-a-female-version-of-sherlock)). Just to name a few:

  * Both like to whip things with a riding crop
  * Irene wearing a white suit the first time we see her, Sherlock wearing a white sheet the first time we see him.
  * They both get their gear off.
  * Both looking at photos of one another at the same time.
  * Sherlock is “going into battle”. Irene wears her “battle dress”
  * “Time to add a splash of colour” Shade? “Blood”
  * She wears his coat, has her hair up to look like his.
  * Their hair is the EXACT same colour, chocolate brown that shines ginger in the light.
  * She sleeps in his bed, wears his dressing gown, sits in his chair etc.



They’ve been in the room together thirty seconds and they’re already playing deductions ( _If you’d like some tea I can call the maid. I had some at the palace. I know. Clearly_ ). But then he can’t deduce a single thing about  **her**. What…just because she’s naked? Surely he could read something. But the question marks tell us that Sherlock seems to have a blank spot in his brain where this particular woman is concerned. There’s also a sound effect in the score when the question marks appear, sort of like wind blowing through an empty room.

Despite Sherlock’s lack of deductions, the two of them have a knack for non-verbal communication when Irene tells Sherlock the keycode to her safe with one little movement of her eyes (anyone with a close sibling knows that you can communicate an entire conversation in a single look). They have an instant connection. It’s made pretty clear.

Then there’s the fact that she fakes her death in ASiB. Why did she do it? Let’s pretend that the events surrounding Irene faking her death in ASiB  **are a clue/parallel**  to the way it happened when she was 15. 

> IRENE: Hello, Doctor Watson.   
>  _(She stops some distance away from him and he simply stares at her for several seconds before he finally finds some words.)_    
>  JOHN  _(quietly, but with a note of pleading in his voice)_ :  **Tell him you’re alive.**  
>  IRENE  _(shaking her head)_ :  **He’d come after me.**
> 
> JOHN: … **Tell him you’re alive.**    
>  IRENE:  **I can’t.**

It HAD to be a secret from Sherlock. Or he would have come after her.

> SHERLOCK: So who’s after you?   
>  IRENE: People who want to kill me.   
>  SHERLOCK: Who’s that?   
>  IRENE: Killers.   
>  JOHN: It would help if you were a tiny bit more specific.   
>  SHERLOCK: So you faked your own death in order to get ahead of them.   
>  IRENE: It worked for a while. 

There were people after her. Killers. She faked her death to get ahead of them. But it only worked for a while. Whoever she was escaping when she was younger, now knows her identity. Perhaps this is why she goes to great lengths to ensure she has ‘protection’.

> SHERLOCK: Except you let John know that you were alive, and therefore me.   
>  IRENE: I knew  _you’d_  keep my secret.   
>  SHERLOCK:  _You_  couldn’t.   
>  IRENE: But you  _did_ , didn’t you?

She’s  **surprised**  and  **pleased**  that Sherlock kept her secret. Maybe she’s seeing now that she could have trusted him the first time around. So why did Irene come back into Sherlock’s life  **now**? She tells us at the beginning of the episode:

IRENE: (on the phone) _**I think it’s time, don’t you?**_

But who was she talking to? What if it was Mycroft? What if Irene suggested that they bring her back into his life now, see if he knew her, if he gave any sign that he remembered who she was. So Mycroft sent Sherlock off on a little case to acquire her phone, just to test the waters. He didn’t recognize her, she beat him,  _then she faked her death, again, with the intent of reminding Sherlock, triggering his repressed memories_. But Irene was double-crossing Mycroft. She was working with Moriarty the whole time. She used Sherlock to crack the Bond Air code. It was probably also fairly straightforward to get Mycroft to fall for her plan. His little sister is bound to be one of his weak spots.

MYCROFT:  **I drove you into her path.**   **I’m sorry. I didn’t know.  
**

Mycroft  _didn’t know_  she was working with Moriarty and planning on double-crossing them both. It’s not a very  _nice_  thing to do, but then, she  _is_ the “evil” twin. And as she says, she likes to ‘cause trouble’. I doubt her evilness runs any deeper than this, to be honest. I don’t think she’s the real Moriarty or anything. Why? Because we’re told several times that she just likes to ‘misbehave’.  _Everything I said, it’s not real, I was just playing the game._ She’s a naughty girl, but she clearly loves her brother, and shows genuine emotion when he ‘beats’ her. Compare this to Mary in HLV who shows  _very little genuine emotion_  over shooting Sherlock, or deceiving John. No, Irene is not a psychopath. She’s done what she had to in order to survive, and if you rewatch ASiB with this theory in mind, almost all of what was perceived as Irene’s sexual attraction to Sherlock can be reinterpreted as adoration for the brother she’s been separated from for so long.  ~~Except for when she says she would have him right here on the desk, what’s up with that??~~

Need some more clues? I’ve got loads more. She’s compared with Mummy Holmes and her  _The Dynamics of Combustion_ with the explosives built into her phone…

IRENE:  **Explosive.**   _(She looks at Mycroft.)_   **It’s more me.**  

Also, in this same scene in Mycroft’s house, the three of them are dressed very alike, in only shades of black and grey, with a tiny splash of red (A scarlet thread? Like Sherlock’s buttonhole?). Irene wears black, and just the soles of her high heels and her lipstick are red. Mycroft wears a black suit, grey tie, with a red pocket handkerchief, and Sherlock wears black with a pin-striped shirt.

There’s also allusions to twins in some imagery and numbers. Battersea power station, with it’s double chimneys.

We also get this bit of dialogue with some interesting numbers:

LESTRADE: Any ideas?  
SHERLOCK:  **Eight, so far.  
** _(He straightens up and looks at the body again, then frowns momentarily.)_  
SHERLOCK:  **Okay, four ideas.**  
_(He turns to Lestrade and looks down at the passport and the ticket stub of the passenger, straightening up again, he gazes up into the sky.)_  
SHERLOCK:  **Maybe** _two_  ideas.

 **2, 4, and 8** are  **2**  raised to the power of  **1, 2,**  and  **3**  respectively. Three sets of twins maybe? John and Harriet. Sherlock and Irene. Jim and Janine. Like I said, it’s never twins means  _it’s always twins._ And the numbers on the columns at Irene’s love nest continue the pattern. Two columns, two numbers, four fours, each of which total eight if added together. Interesting. If anyone who likes numbers wants to make something of this pattern, I’d love to hear it. 

Then there’s the  **Coventry**  story, and Sherlock’s monologue in the car on the way to the airplane full of dead bodies:

> SHERLOCK: There’s going to be a bomb on a passenger jet. The British and American governments know about it but rather than expose the source of that information they’re going to let it happen. The plane will blow up. Coventry all over again. The wheel turns.  _Nothing_  is ever new. 

 **The wheel turns, nothing is ever new.**  Bond Air is Coventry all over again. Just like Irene’s faked-death is a re-do of something that’s been done before. The Bond Air mission itself is a metaphor for a death faked for the purpose of fooling your enemy;  _“The Flight of the Dead”_. ‘ **Flight’** , as in  _flee._ The metaphor of an exploding plane adds more weight to the significance of the ‘explosive’ comment by Irene; there’s something here that might be a clue to why she disappeared, something related to Mummy Holmes.

So according to our Bond Air metaphor, the enemy thinks people have died, but no one actually dies. Yet the enemy believes they have won. I know that this could be metaphor and foreshadowing of Sherlock’s faked death in TRF, especially since it’s called “Bond” Air (and Sherlock is frequently compared to Bond). But Sherlock’s faked death in TRF was a success. Everyone believed Sherlock to be dead. He spent two years in Eastern Europe dismantling Moriarty’s network, and he came back to London when Mycroft apparently decided it was time. It was a success, of sorts. But, the Bond Air case was not. 

> MYCROFT: It  _doesn’t_ fly. It will  _never_ fly. This entire project is cancelled. The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can’t fool them now. We’ve lost everything. One fragment of one email, and months and years of planning finished.

 _The enemy discovered that no one actually died. Irene’s enemy knows she’s alive, knows her identity._ Whoever threatened her life when she was 15, is a threat to her once more. Years of planning finished. That’s why Irene needs protection, and she tried to secure that protection from Mycroft. Could Moriarty be that enemy? Moriarty could have known of Irene, but not have known her true identity until now. Surely Irene herself wasn’t the informant, because she subsequently tries to secure her own protection, and supposedly went to Moriarty for help ( _I had all this stuff, never knew what to do with it. Thank God for the consultant criminal_ ). Who was the informant then? Who would know her true identity, then also have motive to inform her enemy? I don’t know. But Irene is apparently safe once more in America, probably assisted by Mycroft. 

_New name, new identity. She will survive – and thrive – but he will never see her again._

OR WILL HE!? 

Thank you for reading this  ~~crack~~  theory.

**[READ THE IRENE META VERSION 2.0](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/post/149903026650/an-irene-theory) **

_______________________

Cred: Transcripts from [Ariane DeVere](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farianedevere.livejournal.com%2F&t=ODc0OThhOGVhNjk1N2Q1NmU3YmYwMWVhMWE5ZmI3ZjI0MzZmZmZiMCxqVm1pYlBwTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AifT3Q8QrCR8YgkxriemfHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F139237166941%2Fthe-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory&m=1)

[FEB. 14 2016](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/post/139237166941/the-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory)

[#SHERLOCK META](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock-meta) [#SHERLOCK THEORIES](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock-theories) [#SHERLOCK CRACK THEORIES](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock-crack-theories) [#SHERLOCK SPECULATION](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock-speculation) [#SHERLOCK S4](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock-s4) [#MY META](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/my-meta) [#JOHNLOCK](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/johnlock) [#TJLC](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/tjlc) [#IRENE ADLER](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/irene-adler) [#THE OTHER ONE](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/the-other-one) [#REDBEARD](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/redbeard) [#IRENE ADLER IS THE OTHER ONE](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/irene-adler-is-the-other-one) [#IT'S ALWAYS TWINS](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-always-twins)

[561 NOTES](http://tjlcisthenewsexy.tumblr.com/post/139237166941/the-redbeard-solution-a-crack-theory)


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